"But it's true, my dear, most true," she insisted in her voice of gentle magic. "The rest ... was just madness, the sort of madness that some men have the power to--to kindle in women. It's a deadly power, very terrible, and they--who have it--use it as carelessly as children playing with matches and gunpowder--"
"Oh, I understand, Venetia, I understand! Don't--"
"No--let me tell you. I've got to, Jack. I've had this so long in my heart to tell you!... You must be patient with me, this once, and listen.... You must know that I loved you then when I--ran to you--threw myself into your arms--made you ask me to marry you and promised I would and--and thought that I was safe from _him_ because of my promise. But I didn't know myself--nor him. He seemed able to make his will my law so easily--so strangely!... Even when I ran away with him, I knew that happiness could never come of it.... It was just the madness ... I couldn't help myself ... I just could not _help_ myself.... And then--ah, but I have paid for my madness--many times over!..."
For the moment he couldn't trust himself to speak. The woman bent forward to gain a glimpse of his half-averted face, and searched it anxiously with her haunted eyes.
"You do understand, Jack?... You forgive?..."
"There isn't any question of forgiveness," he said. "And I always understood--half-way. You know that--you must have known it, or you couldn't have said--what you have--to me."
The woman laughed a little, tender, broken laugh.
"I am so glad!" she said softly. "Perhaps it's wrong.... But you've made me a little happier. I have needed so desperately someone to confess to--someone on whose sympathy I could count. And--Jack--the only one in the world was you.... You--you've helped."
She rose, holding out both hands to him, and as he took them and held them tight he saw that her lovely eyes were wide and dim with tears.
"You've proved my faith in you," she said--"my gentle man--my knight sans peur et sans reproche!"
He bent his head to her hands, but before his lips could touch them, very gently she drew them away, and turned and left him.
Bareheaded and wondering, for a long time he stood staring at the spot where, in company with the nurse, she had disappeared.